love song stuck in my throat
by swatkat
Summary: After all these years, look at me/With a love song stuck in my throat HouseCuddy


**Title:** love song (stuck in my throat)  
**Fandom:** House, M.D  
**Pairing:** House/Cuddy  
**Words:** 860  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Disclaimer:** Characters belong to Shore and co. I'm merely playing.  
**Summary:** _After all these years, look at me/With a love song stuck in my throat._

**A/N:** Set after 3.14, 'Insensitive'. For the **housefic50** prompt: #019: denial. Title and summary from Kris Delmhorst's 'Damn Love Song'. This is a writing exercise – your thoughts are welcome. I'm not known for my sensitivity.

-

She invites him home.

He says something sarcastic and she ignores him; concentrates instead on the _crunch_ of snow against boot and cane and curious shadows on the street, made by lamplight.

In her kitchen he is oddly out of place; fidgeting and twirling his cane while she makes coffee, looking everywhere but at her.

'There's a fire,' Cuddy says, pointing to the drawing room.

'Cosy,' House replies, and stays where he is, still not looking at her.

He sits on her couch and drinks his coffee like a docile child, doing as he's told. When she kisses him he kisses back, hand splayed warm against her hip. And then he pulls back, just enough to see her face when he says, 'This is about the date thing, isn't it?'

There's that smirk and suddenly she's furious; because he's a bastard, because he's _right_, he always is (eventually). She bites his lip and says, '_Shut up_.'

He protests with teeth and tongue, stubble scraping raw on her skin and she kisses him harder, answering him in the only language he will understand.

-

She doesn't ask him to stay.

In the half-light he looks uncertain, he looks beautiful, standing in the middle of room like he wants –

Like he doesn't know what he wants, rattling his pills and thumping his cane on the floor.

She watches as he pops one pill; two. Says, 'Thanks for the nookie,' and does not wait for her response.

-

'Well this is awkward.'

He barged into her office and made himself comfortable, feet on her coffee table, and she did not say, _feet, House_, did not say _get out_, did not look up from her computer screen and look him in the eye.

He blinked first, she thinks, and says, 'What's awkward?'

'We work together, what will people _think_?' House says, faux-anxious, voice pitched higher in what she assumes is supposed to be an imitation of her own.

'Nothing they haven't thought before,' she responds dryly, watching his eyes narrow.

'No breast-beating and tearing of hair? Or clothes, for that matter. I'm not picky,' House says. 'You disappoint me, Cuddy. Here I was looking forward to the hormone-fuelled guilt sex – it was oh-so-wrong, yet oh-so-right.' His tone is light enough.

It throws him, she knows, when she doesn't play.

'You'll live,' she tells him, and resumes typing.

She doesn't play.

-

There are two new mails in her inbox from JDate.

-

He is at her doorstep that night and she lets him in without a word, lets him take her jacket off and bundle her scarf away. His cheeks are bright red and there is snow on his hair, on his jacket, velvetsoft against her skin. His hands, where he touches her, are icy.

'Better than a hooker any day,' he pants as they break a kiss. Obnoxious twist of his lips and she grabs him by the shoulder, shoves him _down_. Her bedsprings _creak_ in protest. A pillow drops on the floor.

'You sure know how to flatter a girl,' she says between kisses, on his jaw and his collarbone, his chest.

'I'm charming that way,' he says.

Her tongue circles a nipple; scrapes it with teeth, _oh-so-lightly_, and he hisses.

-

Her scarf is on the floor by the couch.

She does not help him find his cane.

-

She can't bring herself to delete the e-mails.

-

Lather, rinse, repeat.

Cuddy listens to the rumble of his bike's engine and tries not to think.

Not breathing, she decides, would be easier.

-

'Late night, Dr. Cuddy?'

A bellow from across the hallway: Cuddy tries not to wince; Brenda rolls her eyes in sympathy.

She looks up from the nurse's station to watch him lumber towards her, cheerful (fake) smile plastered on his face.

When she stood in front of the mirror this morning, there were rings under her eyes and it was, she thought, absolutely ridiculous.

'You were supposed to be in the clinic an hour ago,' Cuddy says. She hands the signed charts over to Brenda and heads for her office.

He follows her. 'Sorry, slept through my alarm. See, there's this girl, and she likes it rough, I mean _really_ rough – '

'I'm surprised you could keep up.'

'_Excuse_ me? You wanna test that theory?' he says, challenging, and what she says is: 'What do you want, House?'

House appears uncomfortable. He looks at her, and looks away, and says, 'I need to know what's going on.' Studies the floor.

The moment stretches out until he looks at her again, a hint of impatience on his face.

'I don't know,' Cuddy says. Her voice is a little unsteady. Hoarse.

-

There are three new mails from JDate in her inbox now.

The first one, Brad, is a banker. A widower and a Red Sox fan. He has a nice smile.

-

Cuddy wakes up in the middle of the night, freezing.

She fiddles with the heat and makes a mental note to yell at her plumber tomorrow morning. Fetches an extra blanket and burrows under the covers again.

It takes her a while to fall asleep.

---


End file.
